This report contains data from the Ruffalo Noel Levitz satisfaction and priorities surveys, which institutions use to help prioritize institutional changes. In turn, RNL regularly reports the collective findings from across the nation to identify trends in college student satisfaction. Here are some of the findings from this year’s college student satisfaction report.

Students’ calls for improvements—a sampling

Across higher education, students are concerned about their ability to register for the classes they need without conflicts.

At four-year private institutions, students prioritized their concerns about the availability of financial aid and their perception that tuition may not be a worthwhile investment.

Students at four-year public institutions indicated concerns with their perception that faculty may not be fair and unbiased in their treatment of individual students.

At community colleges, students were concerned about academic advisors’ knowledge and the timeliness of faculty feedback.

Students at career and private schools placed a priority on the equipment in the lab facilities being kept up to date.

At a glance: How satisfied are today’s college students?

Overall, college student satisfaction for the following six data sets has remained steady in recent years, with nontraditional learners continuing to reflect higher overall satisfaction scores:

As shown above, the majority of today’s college students are satisfied with their college experiences, but there is room for improvement. To move the needle on student satisfaction, RNL recommends that institutions drill down into the specific survey items measured on the RNL surveys and to intentionally respond to identified challenges.

Do you know how satisfied your students are? I encourage you to assess student satisfaction on your campus regularly, and to compare your students’ perceptions with national data on student satisfaction and priorities for your institution type.

Call 800.876.1117 or email me to learn more about RNL Satisfaction-Priorities Surveys or the 2017 college student satisfaction report. I will be happy to discuss how campuses are using satisfaction data to make positive changes that matter to their students.

More than 400 colleges and universities use the 100-item RNL College Student Inventory to drive their early identification and early intervention strategies so they can increase retention and completion. This proven, early-alert assessment quickly spots trouble—and identifies each student’s strengths—much earlier than most programs that are designed to flag at-risk students and sound off early alerts.

Example—how it works—a first-year named Sarah (not her real name)

With a 3.4 GPA in high school, first-year student Sarah didn’t appear to be at risk, but even before her classes began, Sarah’s advisor and student services team were alerted to a number of her motivational risks immediately following orientation when Sarah completed the RNL College Student Inventory, part of RNL Student Success.

Sarah’s top 3 requests (of 25 possible)
I would like to talk with a counselor about my general attitude toward school.
I would like some training to improve my reading skills.
I would like some help selecting an educational plan that will prepare me to get a good job.

In response, Sarah’s institution took appropriate steps to intervene to keep her on track to graduation.

Learn how to better serve each individual adult learner, traditional-age learner, and other groups

Using 20-minute assessments, your advisors and student services teams will be equipped to:

Move beyond mid-term appraisals and exit interviews.

Understand how to provide better, more individualized service from day one that connects with each incoming learner.

Learn what motivates each individual student and which services they are most receptive to.

The fall term has now begun—is your institution doing anything differently this year to increase your student retention rates and help more students succeed? As classes begin, take a minute to compare the effectiveness of your existing student success programs and services with those of other institutions. While there is comfort and success in “the way we’ve always done it,” there may also be room to grow and become even one percent better.

Three award-winning programs for college student success

Three institutions from across the country received Lee Noel and Randi Levitz Retention Excellence Awards at the 2017 National Conference on Student Recruitment, Marketing, and Retention, convened by Ruffalo Noel Levitz from July 26-28 in Denver, Colorado. These winning programs were all unique and tailored by student type, institution type, and available resources, and all of these programs pulled together data from multiple sources to anticipate students’ needs.

University of South Florida (Tampa, Florida): The university has a Student Success Case Management program to identify and serve at-risk students. This individualized and data-informed approach has helped USF raise student retention rates to 90 percent for the 2015 cohort and is on track to surpass the 70 percent six-year graduation rate later in 2017, which will unlock up to $15 million in performance-based funding. The individualization of the Student Success Case Management program is considered core to achieving this goal and broke a three-year performance plateau.

Walsh University (North Canton, Ohio): Walsh University employs a campuswide, student-centered program to connect students to key academic resources and social supports to ensure student success. The holistic, intentional approach relies on a collaborative culture across campus and has resulted in an overall student retention rate of 83 percent.

Southeast Technical Institute (Sioux Falls, South Dakota): Southeast Technical has developed a retention process called Cares to capture data about student needs and meet those needs directly via empowered employees or referral to specific retention programs. Outcomes include 84 percent persistence for the new student Seminar Course, 92 percent persistence for students meeting the Attendance Challenge, and 96 percent persistence for the JumpStart program.

What do these campuses have in common? They are all using student-specific, data-driven, individualized interventions and are empowering every department to engage with students and intervene personally, which includes a meaningful, one-on-one relationship with each student. These recognized programs demonstrate that colleges and universities can truly have an impact on the success of their students and serve as national models for others to use and build upon. Dr. Lee Noel captured this concept many years ago when he advised “give the student what they need, before they know they need it.” With the help of data and technology, the relationships at the core of these winning programs are informing the work caring individuals do to anticipate students’ needs and solve student success challenges.

Learn how these campuses raised their student retention rates during a free webinar

For years, admissions and recruitment teams have developed marketing and communication plans to build demand, generate applications, and optimize yields. These plans ensure that key messages are sent out to provide students and their families with the information they need to make timely decisions along the enrollment pathway. But what happens after the student is enrolled and committed? Do you have a plan to extend this type of communication and relationship management through to college completion? Are you sending key messages at the right times to influence re-enrollment?

When I work with colleges and universities on their student success initiatives, I often recommend developing a post-enrollment communication flow to continue communicating with students and families to increase college completion. I like to call this a CAN Plan.

CAN stands for Congratulate, Alert and Nudge (CAN). A CAN Plan equips you to communicate persuasively with enrolled students as they attempt to persist in their classes, make progress, and re-enroll from term to term. Your plan should include many customized messages informed by pre-enrollment data and information you collect after students enroll.

How to build a well-designed CAN Plan to influence students to re-enroll

Just as you customize messages for prospective students, you must also customize messages for enrolled students. Let me share three examples of ways to do this. Here is the first way:

This attrition curve clusters students into three groups based on a statistical analysis of each student’s likelihood to retain, drawn from pre-enrollment data. You can use the pre-enrollment information to target messaging to nudge incoming students to take advantage of student services and refer them to resources that satisfy their needs. I recommend sending more and different messages for students in the middle of your curve (about two-thirds of your new students) versus students who are already likely to retain (about 20 percent of your population) based on your analysis.

My daughter, Kylie, graduated from a private, liberal arts college in Iowa this spring. I experienced her graduation ceremony both as a proud parent and as a higher education professional, observing what the college did right in celebrating the class of 2017.

Since I manage the Satisfaction-Priorities Surveys for Ruffalo Noel Levitz, the keynote speaker at my daughter’s graduation ceremony was definitely speaking my language when he told students he hoped they were satisfied with their experience! (Yes, he really said that, and my ears perked up!) As they left the college, he wanted them to feel that their investment of time and tuition had been worthwhile. (I would definitely echo that from the national data perspective, and further point out that a 2015 study indicated that institutions with higher satisfaction levels also have higher alumni giving). But the speaker also said he hoped the students were dissatisfied enough with the world around them that they would want to find what they were passionate about and make a change in something that matters. (This fits with how I advise institutions to improve the college experience for students in areas that matter: areas with high importance and low satisfaction to the student body).

What did they celebrate during the graduation ceremony?

A few observations on how the speakers motivated the audience toward college completion and giving back to the college:

The president acknowledged first-generation students and their families for blazing the trail and persevering. She also had legacy students stand and be recognized. There was one student who was a fifth-generation legacy, along with several who were fourth- and third-generation students. I was impressed with the strong family commitments to the college, but can you imagine the expectations those students felt to continue the family tradition?

The college’s young alumni award was presented during the graduation ceremony. (My alma mater presents it during homecoming.) By acknowledging the young alumni during graduation, it encouraged today’s graduates—and their younger peers in the audience—to see what they can accomplish within ten years after graduation. These young alumni stories were an inspiration and a validation of what can be done with a degree from the college.

As part of the Senior Giving Campaign, students who pledged to give back to the college were given a cord to wear with their cap and gown as a visible acknowledgment of their commitment. Kylie commented that she heard several classmates signed up because they wanted some “bling” for the gown, and the Senior Giving commitment was up 10% to 60% with this first year of the graduation cord offer.

Are you implementing acknowledgments like these during your graduation ceremony? Are there additional ways you can motivate students toward completion and celebrate students who blazed a trail or continued a legacy? How else can you reinforce the value of the tuition to the students and their families so they will continue to feel positive about your college? And what is going to motivate your new alumni to stay engaged with your institution as they move on to the next phase of their lives? [Read more…]

Campus professionals have a lot on their minds. With reduced budgets, tightening enrollments, changing demographics, rising college costs, and increased financial need, you are primarily focused on the students you serve and the resources you need to serve them. Those concerns can cause you to overlook one of the most important resources at your disposal: yourself and the campus colleagues who work beside you.

When the budgetary reins get tightened, professional development for campus staff is often one of the first expenses on the chopping block. Campuses certainly have to make many painful cuts in times like these, but cuts for higher education professional development can often have long-term repercussions that far outweigh the minor, temporary budget relief that they bring. In fact, it’s during times like these, when you’re forced to do much more with much less, that training, knowledge, and teamwork become paramount to working efficiently and meeting your goals for enrollment and student success.

There are many big benefits to higher education professional development, but here are five particularly strong ones:

1) Expanding your knowledge has a high ROI.

Let’s say you spend $1500 to attend an event on student retention. During the event, you learn strategies for early-alert programs that help you retain three more students and bring in $15,000 of net revenue that would have been lost had those students withdrawn. You’ve far exceeded the relatively minor investment you made to attend that event. The same would apply if you had learned strategies that helped you recruit three more students.

What often gets overlooked in cutting higher education professional development is the cost-effectiveness of expanding your professional knowledge. Learning new strategies, especially strategies that are already working at other campuses, can pay big dividends, both immediately and down the road. And as the example above illustrates, even small improvements in your enrollment can far exceed your original investment.

2) Professional development facilitates change.

Routine tends to stifle change and innovation in any organization, and campuses are no exception. We get so used to the way things are that we don’t see how things could be.

In today’s environment, college affordability is a top enrollment concern for high school students and a top re-enrollment concern for college students. Colleges and universities that successfully address this concern earlier and systematically will be at a competitive advantage over those that don’t.

I recently heard someone say, “Schools don’t lack for data. However, they often lack the ability to take action with their data.” Do you agree? As you gather student feedback data on your campus, I encourage you to look for survey tools that are going to give you data that is prioritized and actionable.

Student satisfaction surveys from Ruffalo Noel Levitzare one example of an actionable survey tool. These surveys gather student perceptions of the current experience at your institution and prioritize the findings. Many institutions assess student satisfaction on a regular basis with these tools. College student satisfaction data can serve as the “student voice” for informed decision making for student success efforts (i.e. retention improvements), strategic planning, and accreditation purposes.

The survey uncovers priority items for improvement by identifying areas where students express a high level of importance along with a low level of satisfaction, based on national norms. Survey items measured in this way are actionable by changing institutional policies and procedures, immediately or in the near future, and by adjusting student perceptions.

To take action, you also need the following:

Supportive leadership

Budget dollars (but there are things that can be done with a small investment)

Individuals who will take responsibility for new initiatives

Additional direction from students–through focus groups or other qualitative methods–to be sure you fully understand what the item on the survey means on your campus.

Examples from campuses putting college student satisfaction data to work

This is part two of a two-part post on preparing for today’s diverse college populations, to increase their college completion rates. See part one.

A few weeks ago my colleague, Dr. Mari Normyle, posted a blog with a question: Will your institution be ‘student-ready’ for diverse college populations on Day One? My response is YES, you can be!

To be ready, first look carefully at the needs of the diverse populations within the entering class. When you understand the needs of our entering students by race/ethnicity, first-generation vs. students with college-educated parents, gender, age, or any other diverse category, you can begin to make decisions how to strategically use the data to impact outcomes.

One way to gain a solid understanding of entering students’ diverse needs is to gather motivation data by population. For example, the first part of this post provided 13 factsin four diverse categories about 2016 entering freshman which were collected from 99,300 students who completed RNL’s College Student Inventory. All 13 facts are what we call leading indicators, or early alerts, which can help to determine what entering students need to persist, progress, retain, and complete. Most of you know we at RNL are all about being data-informed and spend most of our time working with you to move data into action.

Benchmarking: another important first step for serving diverse college populations

Before you set strategy, it is also helpful to understand normal outcomes for your institution type. In the 2017 Student Retention Indicators Benchmark Reportyou will find benchmarks for persistence, progression, and retention for four-year and two-year institutions. For example, you will find persistence outcomes from term one to term two and term two to term three for first-time-in-college students regardless of race/ethnicity, first-generation vs. students with college-educated parents, gender, age or other attributes.